The hardest part about logging every calorie is how time consuming it is. I have done that a little bit lately, but I think I have only gone all the way through with it one day because of how long it takes. I know about custom foods and all that. I dunno, maybe I will do it again. Thanks for your input. You are right about the all or nothing thinking. I am already feeling pretty good just thinking about this. I am losing weight and feeling good and just had one bad half-day. I'm sure it hurt my averages a lot. But not as much as having 14 bad half-days in the same week LOL. So, nice to meet you Michael. I'm Mike. What things have worked for you in your huge amount of weight loss. Do you have a plan for maintaining when you get back there?

Hi Mike. I know custom foods are a bit of a pain, but once they're in, they're in. I spend less than 5 minutes a day entering my food and activities. I make much use of the "recent foods" features--if you do the "more foods" choice at the bottom you can scroll through the last week(s) of food and check off multiple ones to add--this makes entry quick and painless.

As to my plan, I stay between 1500 and 1600 calories a day (always 1500, usually under 1550). I don't "cheat". I do have one day a month that I plan to take "off" w/no calorie restrictions. I do log everything, even on the day "off".

I try to keep more-or-less a 40/30/30 carb/prot/fat mix on my pie chart, but don't worry too much if it's off a bit.

I avoid simple carbs and processed food as much as possible.

I only drink black coffee and water (and usually some form of alcohol on my "day off").

Most days I eat 300 cals (high protein) for breakfast, 100 cal snack around 9 am, 300 cals for lunch around 11:30 and the rest of my calories for dinner around 5:30 or thereabouts.

I walk 1.3 miles in 25 minutes every day during my lunch break and on weekends do WiiFit and/or some other activity.

This is what works for me. I will say that my loss has slowed down now that I'm under 300--it's about 2 lbs a week now. In past weight loss journies I've lost much faster, though I was younger and ate much fewer calories (1000 a day).

I'm now convinced that a more sedate pace is better for a number of reasons.

As to maintaining the loss, the jury is still out. It's something I've never been able to do in the past. My current thought is that by losing more slowly my body and mind will adjust to the new "me". And, I intend to continue to log food/activities here to keep me "honest". We'll just have to wait and see how that all plays out, so stay tuned!